Dianne Hawker, Zara Nicholson, Henri Du Plessis And Murray Williams
21 May 2007
Snowfalls on the Boland mountains have contributed to plummeting temperatures as Cape Town today picked up the pieces in the wake of the weekend's vicious storm.
Residents in Cape Flats informal settlements were still mopping up today after their homes and the pathways in their areas were flooded by heavy rain overnight.
Snow fell on mountain peaks above Ceres, Franschhoek and Somerset West, as temperatures plummeted to below freezing point in higher-lying areas.
Temperatures are expected to remain low throughout the week, with a maximum of 13º C today.
And there's more rain on the way, as a weaker cold front approaches from the south-west to hit late on Wednesday or Thursday morning. Another is expected to arrive on Saturday, said forecaster Nick Koegelenberg.
The winter weather, caused by a north-westerly storm generated by a cut-off low pressure system, caused widespread flooding and damage that left more than 1 000 people temporarily homeless.
The heavy rain and high winds destroyed a newly built church in Vrygrond, submerged roads and shacks, and hit a major power line, plunging much of the southern Peninsula into darkness.
This morning, Kosovo near Philippi - one of three informal settlements badly hit by the heavy rains - had heavily flooded paths and residents were still throwing buckets of water out of their shacks.
The other two areas, Section B in Langa and the Lotus informal settlement, appeared to have been mopped up, though heaps of dirt still filled the paths, puddles filled the paths as many residents dodged and jumped to get down the streets to work and school.
A Kosovo resident, Masibolekwe Juwele, 32, had not gone to work on a construction site in Plumstead this morning and sent his wife and nine-month old son to a relative while he cleaned and mopped up their shack, still full of water from the heavy weekend rains. Many other residents in the area also had to mop up their shacks.
Parts of the south Peninsula, including Claremont, Ottery, Bonteheuwel, Heideveld, Rylands, Mowbray, Kensington, Vanguard Drive and Brooklyn were without electricity for much of yesterday.
The city's director for electricity, Dr Les Rencontre, said the persistent rainfall had been at the root of the problem.
"There were a number of faults on one of the cables that feeds into Muizenberg in the south.
"Our technicians have been working on the problem," he said.
Over the weekend, the persistent heavy rain flooded roads and homes, sent trees crashing on to roads and transformed tiny streams into torrents.
Late last night, workers from the city's roads and stormwater department were still pumping water from blocked drains and flooded roads, as well as from flooded properties, said Johan Minnie, spokesman for Disaster Management.
"We were supplying about 800 people with blankets and food parcels," he said.
"People from informal settlements in four areas had to be taken to temporary alternative shelter.
"In Gugulethu, 300 people were moved into a daycare centre. People from Kosovo and Gqobasi at Philippi and a small group from Khayelitsha also had to be moved out of flooded shacks," Minnie said.
"There are still some roads where the drainage is slow and council staff have had to remove quite a number of trees that had been blown down."
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